Children's Boutique Drains Owner's Pockets But She Perseveres

Lola and Me

Mark Mirko / Hartford Courant

03.29.2014 - Canton, Ct - Naomi Stanhope of Lola and Me, a children's boutique in Collinsville that's been open since 2009. It doesn't make enough money to break even -- or pay anyone even minimum wage. Stanhope bought it in 2012 from the former owner. She makes her living as a nanny. Photograph by Mark Mirko | mmirko@courant.com

03.29.2014 - Canton, Ct - Naomi Stanhope of Lola and Me, a children's boutique in Collinsville that's been open since 2009. It doesn't make enough money to break even -- or pay anyone even minimum wage. Stanhope bought it in 2012 from the former owner. She makes her living as a nanny. Photograph by Mark Mirko | mmirko@courant.com (Mark Mirko / Hartford Courant)

Stanhope, 27, has been a nanny for years, and worked part time for a children's boutique in Avon that closed after three years when the owner decided she'd rather spend more time with her young children.

She was working erratic weekend shifts for Lola and Me, a Collinsville children's boutique in 2011, when owner Charlotte Rossi asked her if she wanted to buy the store.

Rossi, who had been running a store in Torrington for more than 20 years, sold both Lola and Me in Collinsville and another children's boutique in South Hadley, Mass., to young women working in the stores for the cost of inventory and fixtures.

"I thought it was a good opportunity for them," Rossi said.

Stanhope continues to work Monday through Friday as an anesthesiologist's nanny, and works in the store on weekends and Thursday evenings. Her mother runs the store weekdays for no pay.

Now in the third year of running Lola and Me, Stanhope says while she generally does enough sales to pay the rent and utilities, she doesn't clear enough profits to completely pay for the next season's inventory.

"It all goes on the credit card," she said. As she sells the product, she pays down the balance, but also uses her nanny earnings, babysitting earnings and housesitting earnings to repay the debt.

She said she hasn't paid herself or her mother a dime since taking over in January 2012.

"A business takes five years to where you decide if you're going to stay open," Stanhope said. "You're going to have your ups and downs in the five years."

She said that in 2011, the store did less than $30,000 in sales, and in her first year of operation, she increased it by 75 percent. In 2013, sales increased 10 percent from 2012, she said, and in early 2014, sales were $5,000 over the same period of 2013. She projects she'll do $50,000 in sales this year.

Stanhope said she'd probably need to do close to $70,000 in sales to not be sinking her own resources into inventory, and about $100,000 to be able to pay one salary of $22,000 a year.

If she had known when she bought it what she knows now, she says she would still have bought it. "Because it's an opportunity," she said. "It's not an opportunity you get offered to you every day."

About 40 percent of the store's sales are clothes, and 60 percent is toys and books. She stocks cribs and other furniture, but has only sold one crib since she took over.

She acknowledged there are days when she questions whether it will take off.

"Healthwise, it's taken a lot on me. I've gained at least 40 pounds in the last four years."

She has agreed to groupon-style deals with Savenow CT, but said she loses money every time.

"They're buying it at less than wholesale," she said, and she only gets 10 percent repeat customers.

"I don't know what other advertising I need to do," she said.

It's a crowded field, with similar boutiques in another section of Canton, two stores in Avon, one in West Hartford, and of course, competition from big box stores.

Naomi Stanhope said she's learned that babies' outfits between $16 and $35 will sell, but not ones that are $48 and up. As she shows a reporter around the discount floor upstairs, she points to a coat and hat for girls. "That didn't do as well as I thought it would. Maybe if I had things out earlier, it would've sold?"

A bit later, Carrie Whitney, her 14-year-old daughter, Katahdin and 3-month-old daughter, Atticus, come in to buy a soft giraffe teething toy for about $30. It's a big seller at Lola and Me, with maybe 200 sold over the years, Stanhope said.

Carrie Whitney said she knows she could buy it at a big box store, and said, "I'd rather support local businesses, being we're from Collinsville," she said.

Katahdin points to that same coat that's on sale with delight, saying another little girl needs it. Her mother smiles indulgently, as if to say no one needs a coat trimmed with faux leopard fur.

Lola and Me is at 41 Bridge St. Collinsville, and is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. 860-352-5522